I was just reading an article about Lamar Smith, the sponsor of the bill….and I can’t help but wonder if he has a computer/iPad and/or smartphone…and if he ever uses them! Shaking my head trying to comprehend how he and others think SOPA is a good idea!

You raise a good point. On the one hand, this is an example of a lobby gone wrong. I completely understand the MPAA’s position in regards to sites that pirate movies, but the bill itself is a horrible way of addressing the problem. Good idea and legitimate need, but terrible execution. On the other, some of the lawmakers who backed the bill are so beyond internet-illiterate it boggles the mind. I am not sure how it is that so many of our representatives in DC can be so behind the times. Scary.

I agree with you “SOPA doesn’t just completely miss the mark when it comes to making it harder for digital piracy to take place, it also basically puts the internet under Taliban rule.” First, I saw this on Facebook, some of my friends posted this news. I was shock by this, because I think internet is the biggest advertising place to make publicity, and if SOPA prohibit from showing pictures or some sort of stuff, then we can’t see the “sharing” concept anymore. For instance, we use Pandora all the time, we sign up an account, yet we can enjoy listening any music channel we want. Like Shazam, if we don’t know the song’s name, use this app through our smart phones, it can tell us the answers. Recently, I’m taking communication ethic class, in the book “Communication Ethic Literacy” says “When we attempt to make the public arena a private place of agreement, we move private commonplaces to a public form of banality, a form of extreme commonness, taking away their uniqueness and special nature.” Which means the distinctiveness of friendship rests with the private information shared with a limited number of people. If everyone knows the private information, then the friendship is no longer defined by unique knowledge of one another.

Today, communication technology provides us the most powerful strength in the human history. We need to utilize our private power turn into public, use the “sharing” concept to let everybody make the good decision, change our community.

A lot of people say SOPA would kill the freedom of internet users, and government basically was going to control us. Personally, I think government already control the internet but just don’t dominate on internet, they give us freedom place and it has less regulation. In the book “The Handbook of Communication Ethics” chapter 17 the author talks about the internet, message, and ethical political communication, it talks about how government uses the internet to engage people, it’s been eliminating the gap between the public and the government. It also mentioned technology makes it possible for international audiences to engage with president Obama in ways that were not possible in earlier times. Therefore, the “sharing” power is infinitely, it helps the government to connect with the public better, at the mean time it helps the audience improve their understanding in their lives, it’s an improvement of human civilization. “Real democratic politics must be practices in a public forum rather than in virtual space.” The book says.
I’m glad SOPA did not happen, and it shouldn’t been happened.